ALBUM REVIEW: All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us – Architects

ARCHITECTS have always stood out from their contemporaries for their sheer forward thinking and creativity: All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us is no exception to this rule. Opening with the breakneck speed of Nihilist, encompassing the mid-pace soundscapes of Gone With the Wind, the colossal high of A Match Made in Heaven, before concluding with the progressive mastery of Memento Mori,All Our Gods… is an astonishingly varied and creative effort from a band that continue to stride from triumph to triumph.

Musically, All Our Gods… takes the musical palette developed on the last two albums – Daybreaker and Lost Forever//Lost Together but beefs it up with compositions much wider in scope and scale. Take, for example, A Match Made In Heaven and Gone With the Wind which pound away with heavily MESHUGGAH inspired guitar work beneath which electronics swell and build into a breath-taking crescendo. Another example of this much wider compositional focus is the stunning album closer Memento Mori. Taking everything that ARCHITECTS undertake on this album to its logical extreme the first half of this song builds up to an emotional climax before devolving down into crushingly brutal blast beats. It is a master class in song-writing from a band who are clearly comfortable with their musical identity, and aren’t afraid to push it.

Structurally, too, All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us is perfect. Clocking in at a fairly lean 45 minutes All Our Gods remains consistently interesting – impressive considering the focus upon more mid-paced, yet expansive compositions. Nihilist introduces the album very well as one of the fastest, and most simplistic moments on the album. The ambience of Gone With the Wind contrasts strongly against the more guitar led Downfall while the frankly brilliant Gone With the Wind stands resolute as the albums centrepiece before the finality of Memento Mori draws proceedings to a close. Nihilist and Momento Mori are perfect bookends to All Our Gods… while there’s never a run of songs that blends into one in the album proper. Lastly, All Our Gods concise nature contributes hugely to its appeal, neither cutting the work off as too short or, for that matter, overstaying its welcome.

All Our Gods is another step on ARCHITECTS extraordinary musical evolution. Neither repeating the formula of Lost Forever//Lost Together nor bewildering with a curveball release as they did with 2011’s The Here and NowARCHITECTS remain one of the UK’s brightest creative prospects. All Our Gods… stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the creative Behemoths of modern heavy music and will certainly be one of the year’s highlights.